A whole lotta "meh" and a bit of wow
Usually when I read the New York Times Book Review on Sundays there are at least two titles, often more, that I am inspired to add to my to-read list. Today I went through the entire section and did not add any. It seems like this should mean something but I'm not sure what.
Courtesy of a colleague on GoodReads, however, I also read a superb essay by Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, written for The New Yorker. Burgess begins by talking about A Clockwork Orange but expands into a discussion of the role of the state, free will, the nature of good and evil, and all sort of other remarkably timely and pertinent topics (especially considering it was originally written in 1972!). An essay to savor. This was one of my favorite bits:
...We probably have no duty to like Beethoven or hate Coca-Cola, but it is at least conceivable that we have a duty to distrust the state...In small social entities-English parishes, Swiss cantons-the machine that governs can sometimes be identified with the community that is governed. But when the social entity grows large, becomes a megalopolis, a state, a federation, the governing machine becomes remote, impersonal, even inhuman. It takes money from us for purposes we do not seem to sanction; it treats us as abstract statistics; it controls an army; it supports a police force whose function does not always appear to be protective...[I]n our own century, the state has been responsible for most of our nightmares. No single individual or free association of individuals could have achieved the repressive techniques of Nazi Germany, the slaughter of intensive bombing, or the atomic bomb. War departments can think in terms of megadeaths, while it is as much as the average man can do to entertain dreams of killing the boss. The modern state, whether in a totalitarian or a democratic country, has far too much power, and we are probably right to fear it...
Courtesy of a colleague on GoodReads, however, I also read a superb essay by Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, written for The New Yorker. Burgess begins by talking about A Clockwork Orange but expands into a discussion of the role of the state, free will, the nature of good and evil, and all sort of other remarkably timely and pertinent topics (especially considering it was originally written in 1972!). An essay to savor. This was one of my favorite bits:
...We probably have no duty to like Beethoven or hate Coca-Cola, but it is at least conceivable that we have a duty to distrust the state...In small social entities-English parishes, Swiss cantons-the machine that governs can sometimes be identified with the community that is governed. But when the social entity grows large, becomes a megalopolis, a state, a federation, the governing machine becomes remote, impersonal, even inhuman. It takes money from us for purposes we do not seem to sanction; it treats us as abstract statistics; it controls an army; it supports a police force whose function does not always appear to be protective...[I]n our own century, the state has been responsible for most of our nightmares. No single individual or free association of individuals could have achieved the repressive techniques of Nazi Germany, the slaughter of intensive bombing, or the atomic bomb. War departments can think in terms of megadeaths, while it is as much as the average man can do to entertain dreams of killing the boss. The modern state, whether in a totalitarian or a democratic country, has far too much power, and we are probably right to fear it...